Soulprints - Amyline Quien Ching

Penning the Way to a New World

While food may tame a growling stomach, it is not enough to ease the craving of the soul to create and to espouse what the lips would not dare utter. To weave words into a tapestry worth hanging on the walls of the consciousness is to a writer even more vital than perhaps the very thread of life that he depends on.

A FEAST OF CREATIVITY
Aspiring writers fed their creative hunger in an annual feast that served the best literary talents that the University of Santo Tomas has to offer. “The university is indeed a vast ocean inhabited by literary finds. And it takes a good fisherman to make the possibility of a great harvest,” discloses Joanne Fajardo, editor in chief of the Varsitarian and chairperson of the event. Close to a hundred entries piled up the big brown box that the organizer, UST Varsitarian has prepared for the event. Poetists, essayists and fictionists in English and Filipino clearly stared at Failure in the face and swallowed their fear to join the 19th Gawad Ustetika, the most prestigious literary competition in UST soil. “The bulk of the entries did not come until the last two days before our announced deadline. We could not hide the stupid, relieved grins on our face, saying… At long last, here they are,” reveals Varsitarian’s English literary editor and the event’s external affairs chair Natasha Gamalinda. This behavior is not so illogical considering the amount of courage it takes to even contemplate joining let alone placing a part of yourself into an envelope and risk being vulnerable in the eyes of some of the greatest artists in the country. This was attested by Ronald Jeffrey Lim, who won second prize for his short story “Night Out.” “I never intended to join the contest because I was sure I’d never win. It was my friends who encouraged me and I am now glad that I took that chance,” he mentions with a smile, clearly happy to have passed the eagle eyes of the judges, which resembled the list of Who’s Who of the Philippine literary scene. UST Center for Creative Writing and Studies (CCWS) director Ophelia Alcantara-Dimalanta served as the chairperson for Poetry with Neil Garcia and Nerisa del Carmen-Guevara as judges. Filipino poetists passed the strict standards of Linangan sa Imahen, Retorika at Anyo (LIRA) president Rebecca Añonuevo, Allan Popa and Ignatian Literary Arts and Practice (Iglap) rector Benilda Santos, who served as chair. Jose Wendell Capili and Rina Jimenez-David along with chairperson Bienvenido Lumbera formed the panel of judges for the Essay category while Reynaldo Candido Jr., Michael Coroza and UP Institute of Creative Writing head Vim Nadera (chair) took on the Sanaysay category. Lourd Ernest de Veyra, Ramil Gulle and UP Press director Cristina Pantoja-Hidalgo (chair) looked into the Fiction entries while Jose Victor Torres, Aurora Yumul, and CCWS Senior Associate Cirilo Bautista (chair) took care of the Katha entries.

FUTURE OF PHILIPPINE LITERATURE
Following the esteemed footstep of last year’s winner Bienvenido Lumbera, this year’s Parangal Hagbong went to Sr. Ma. Delia Coronel who has published books on native Filipino folklore. Most notable of her works is the “Legends and Stories of the Philippines,” which has undergone several editions and printings. She also translated the ancient Maranao epic “Darangen,” which “antedated the coming of the Muslims” to English verse. On its 7th year, the award pays tribute to Thomasian writers who have made significant contributions to Philippine Literature.
Unsurprisingly, students from the Faculty of Arts and Letters dominated the list of awardees. Joseph de Luna Saguid, an AB Communication student, was chosen by Fr. Rector Tamerlane Lana, O.P. to receive this year’s Rector’s Literary award for his poetry collection, “Pangitain ng mga Isda sa Madaling Araw.” The Rector’s Award is given to one of the first prize winners who best reflects the Christian values upheld by the university. College of Commerce and Accountancy’s Kim Louie Favis and AB Journalism’s Denirose Afinidad settled for second and third place respectively for Tula. AB Journalism student Glenn Vincent Atanacio was adjudged Thomasian Poet of the Year for his poetry collection, “Dream Songs from my Country of Dreams.” AB Philosophy student Mervin Espina settled for second with “Adobo Incident” while AB Literature student Ma. Ailil Alvarez got the third with “Fluctuating Colors.” Named Thomasian Essayist of the Year, Rosita Alyssa Baua of the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery won the nod of the judges for her essay, “The Gift.” CCA student Jaime Adriano’s “A Little Appraisal” and Ma. Lourdes Parawan’s “Rabid Tales” bagged the second and third prizes respectively. There were no first and third prizes for the Katha category but Anna Krisna Bautista’s “Kalderong Walang Laman,” won second prize. Kristel Anne Satumbaga and Joseph Espina were given honorable mentions. Fiction also saw no first and third prizes. Ronald Jeffrey Lim was victor for his short story “Night Out” while Ma. Melissa Frieda Padero’s “Bring Me Flowers” was given honorable mention. The sanaysay category only had one special citation, Allan Jason Tiu of the Faculty of Phramacy for his essay, “Ang Katotohanan ng Lipunan.”

METAMORPHOSIS OF A WRITER
Writing such a masterpiece may take just a week or two but developing the heart and the instinct for writing takes years… years of poring over grammar rules and spelling books, of perfecting an internal rhythm that only a master could detect, of developing a style that is a collage of all the literary influences that have breathed life to your pen. “I’ve been writing since I was in high school. Believe it or not, it was April O’Neill of the show Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that inspired me to be a journalist,” Ronald sheepishly says. Thomasian Poet of the Year Glenn Vincent Atanacio also started young. “I have been dabbling with poetry for so long now but it was only in high school that I started to get seriously into it.”
Beyond the rules of the language, the rhythm of each syllable, the meter of each poetic line is the heart of every literary masterpiece— the message. Writing does not only involve the melding of paper and ink, it is the birth of an internal being that has suddenly been given a voice unlike any other voice in the past, in the present and in the future. Ideologies are created. Reforms are called for. Radical notions are set forth. While some focuses on the intricacies of love as an emotion, others try to define social realities through their eyes. Glenn, with his poetry collection “Dream Songs from my Country of Dreams” centered on the events that has plagued the world in recent months. “It’s political in a way. One of the poems in the collection alluded to war while others talked about the various happenings in the country,” he explains. Ronald, discussed the delicate subject of bisexuality in his short story, “Night Out,” which centered on a girl who went out on a date with a bisexual and lost her virginity to him. “I have been keeping that idea inside my head since last year but the actual writing took about a week or two,” shares Ronald, a fourth year student of Journalism. The Annual Gawad Ustetika, not only serves to satiate the hunger of those already starving for creative expression but also whet the appetite of those who have fasted for so long.
And what would entice one to write? Certainly not the expectation of amassing bags of gold for not even timber could be found languishing among the piles of papers that one has kept in hiding. It would certainly not be the spotlight that highlights one’s name in books, for oftentimes only Dickinson would know who Dickinson is and if one has the courage to come out, it would be Anonymous who would get all the accolades. It is not even the possibility of sharing one’s thoughts for most times only the paper lies witness to the creation of what should have been the greatest literary work ever written. Such is the life of one who chooses to wield the pen instead of perhaps a stethoscope, a gavel or even the microphone… never to conquer a nation, never to conquer the world… only paper. And yet, with his words, with his ideologies lie the light that would keep the fires of hope burning and with each paper that he has painstakingly fashioned from the depths of his soul, he would build a world greater than this ever was.

posted by Amyline Quien Ching @ 11:21 PM